1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of machining machine tools and particularly to the adaptations allowing the driving and guiding means of a mobile element of a machine tool to be protected in the best possible conditions.
2. Discussion of the Background
In the prior art, a plurality of devices and screens are provided in order to ensure against the projection of cuttings caused by any machining operation, whether a turning, milling or grinding operation, etc . . .
The applicant led researches on a protection device against cuttings likely to be adapted on a particular type of machine tools performing the machining of braces. The arrangements of the various parts of said machine, and especially the driving elements of the tools, led to a specification sheet that none of the prior art devices were able to satisfy correctly.
Indeed, the prior art devices, and especially the telescopic devices, feature fixed elements on each side of the zone to be protected, said fixed elements requiring a minimum of space for their mounting.
Likewise, the devices following a mobile element along a displacement axis constituted by a rigid plate coiling and uncoiling around two rolls placed on each side of the mobile element, require a location in order to place said rolls, the dimensions of which may vary.
One of the aims of the invention is to provide a device offering an efficient protection for a minimum space allowance.
The type of machine tools this protection device needs to be adapted to, does not provide the space necessary for the mounting of classical protection devices, because of the fact that until now, the protection against the projection of cuttings as well as their evacuation were provided by jets of cutting oil or other means, that being a technical solution that in the long term would disappear because of the implementation of the new European standards in order to make room for devices taking into account dry machining.
The researches led by the applicant about a particular application resulted in an original concept of a protection device against the projection of cuttings, said concept being new and creative and allowing:
the protection against the projection of cuttings in optimal conditions;
the respect of the specification sheet as established;
but also its adaptation on any device that requires the protection of the driving and guiding means of its mobile element.
According to the main feature of the invention, the protection device of the driving means of a mobile element against the projection of cuttings of a machining machine tool having a driving section and a machining section, is of the type that defines a protection wall that, being interdependent from the mobile element that goes through it, separates the driving section from the machining section. This device is noticeable because of the fact that it is constituted by a plate interdependent from the crossing part of the mobile element and moving in a free translation on a freely rotating disk with respect to a cabin, and the rotation axis of said disk is shifted with respect to the displacement axis of said mobile element for which a first displacement window is arranged in the disk and a second displacement window is arranged in the cabin. These two displacement windows are placed with respect to each other in such a manner that the displacement of the mobile element in said second window along a plane perpendicular to the rotation axis of the disk simultaneously causes the sliding of said plate on the disk as well as the rotation of said disk, so that said translational displacement of the plate and the rotation of the disk occlude the opening of the two displacement windows.
The use of a disk is particularly advantageous in that it avoids the necessity to have a displacement area for the protection screen on each side of the real surface to be protected, as for instance the telescopic devices requiring a fixed part or at least a minimum fixed width allowing the arrangement of a mobile element of the telescopic structure. It is also the case with the plates coiling or uncoiling around the rolls on each side of the zone to protect. The geometry of the circle is thus particularly advantageous with respect to the space required for such a protection device. Therefore, said protection device can be adapted to devices or machine tools for which no necessary space was provided, in the original concept, for the mounting of a protection device against the projection of cuttings, all the while offering an optimal protection device allowing the motions of the mobile element going through it and driving its different components.
Another advantage linked to such a device consists in the simplicity not only of its kinematics but also of the various elements comprising it, which allows to contemplate a low cost embodiment, which is the applicant""s constant concern.
Indeed, the implemented kinematics in such a device is provided by a slide-link moving on a plane in a pivot-link. No additional drive is required as the motions of the plate and disk are provided by the motions of the mobile element in a plane perpendicular to the rotation axis of the disk, the plate and the disk moving freely.
The elements comprising the protection device are reduced to the minimum, due to the fact of the very simplicity of the implemented concept. The displacement window arranged in the cabin must be occluded by the disk and the plate sliding above, and the displacement window arranged in the disk must be occluded by the plate interdependent with said mobile element that goes through said plate.
The mobile element of which the driving and guiding means or any other constitutive means of a machine tool sensitive to cuttings projection can be constituted of course by a tool holderxe2x80x94slide or a tightening module for a subject piece, among others.
The fundamental concepts of the invention having been put forth hereabove in their most elementary form, other details and features will be brought out through the reading of the following description, giving as way of a non limiting example and in view of the attached drawings, an embodiment of a protection device of the driving and guiding means of a mobile element of a machining machine tool against the projection of cuttings corresponding to the invention.